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If the MOON reflects sunlight, why are the moon landing photos so DARK?

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posted on Nov, 28 2012 @ 10:02 PM
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posted on Nov, 28 2012 @ 10:04 PM
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I thought the logic was the landing sites were located where the sun was on the horizon. So this limits heat and brightness from the sun. But it's a reasonable question because if you've ever been out of the city during a full moon it is extremely bright. Almost like a less intense sun. You can see almost as clear as day.
edit on 28-11-2012 by MortPenguin because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 28 2012 @ 10:10 PM
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I'm just posting to beast someone else to it:

The moon landing photos were so DARK because Stanley Kubrick hadn't paid the light bill...



posted on Nov, 28 2012 @ 10:11 PM
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reply to post by MortPenguin
 


Well I think it comes down to surface area and how close the moon is



posted on Nov, 28 2012 @ 10:18 PM
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posted on Nov, 28 2012 @ 10:36 PM
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Attention!

We expect civility and decorum within all topics

And that members will stay on topic.

The OP asked a simple question. Please answer it in a civil manner.



posted on Nov, 28 2012 @ 11:24 PM
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Originally posted by thesmokingman
Just throwing this out there to all you smart ATSers. I have always had ONE question about the moon landing and the possibility of it being a hoax.....The moon is a source of pretty bright light is it not? I mean, it produces quite a bit of light WAYYYY down here on earth. However, in EVERY single photo from the landing, there sure does not seem to be very much light.
It's interesting you should say this, because this is exactly the opposite of what other moon landing conspiracy theorists claim, which is that the photos are too bright and the moon reflects too much. Here is one photo I've seen cited showing how reflective the moon is:

pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu...


[conspiracy theorist]: This is a famous picture labeled "Man on the Moon" I have a poster of this picture hanging on my wall in my room, and it always gives me a chuckle.

If you will look at area B you will notice a shadow cast across Buzz Aldrin's space suit. Once again, if the Sun is the only light source used on the moon, this shadow would have been MUCH darker.

[reply explaining it's not a conspiracy]: The Sun is the primary light source, however, it lights up not only the lunar surface, but the LM, the astronauts spacesuit, and anything else on the lunar surface so that light scattered off of those objects will fill the dark shadows with light. Try going into a small darkened room and shine a flashlight on the wall. The side of you opposite the flashlight which only sees the lighted wall will be lit by the scattered light off the wall from the flashlight spot. The Earth also adds some fill light to the shadows, but the Sun dominates the lighting on the Moon.

This is supposedly proof of the moon landing being hoaxed because some people feel there must be another light source. But most of the light you see on the side of the astronaut in the shadow is reflected from the moon. It's possible a tiny bit of light from the Earth could add light to some pictures, but by far the biggest source is light reflected from the moon.

So which is it? Does it reflect too much as others claim, or not enough as you suggest? It looks just about right to me as seen in this photo, so I don't think this is any evidence of a hoax, but it certainly seems to be evidence refuting your claim that the light isn't brightly reflected from the moon's surface, right? There are other photos where the lunar module is brightly lit in the shadow, by the moon's reflection of sunlight.
edit on 28-11-2012 by Arbitrageur because: clarification



posted on Nov, 28 2012 @ 11:33 PM
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I suppose as well as the fact that the moon only reflects light from the sun, It might look a little brighter than lead to appear due to our atmosphere? I dunno just throwing it out there.



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 01:01 AM
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reply to post by thesmokingman
 


The moon is a source of pretty bright light is it not?
I would say it's a source of reflected light.

You would think that the brightness of the moons reflection, that it would interfere with the photos being taken.
It did interfere with the photos. Many of them were overexposed due to the brightness of the sun even though the cameras were adjusted for the bright conditions expected. It was for this reason that stars do not appear in surface images.

The Moons albedo is low in compairison to the other planets and it does change over time.

From NASA’s planetary sites, the brightest is Venus with an albedo of 0.65. That means 65% of incoming sunlight is reflected from the cloud-covered planet.
Our Moon’s average visual albedo is 0.12. The brightness of the Moon changes dramatically as its phase changes.

A full Moon's albedo also changes due to Earth's changing atmosphere and the angle of the sun's reflective light off the Moon.

The Moon’s visual albedo on its illuminated segment gets progressively smaller as the angle between the Earth and Sun on the Moon (phase angle) increases. A major reason for this decrease of visual albedo with increasing phase angle is the greater creation of shadows on the irregular lunar surface, thereby reducing reflected light back to Earth.
Exerts source: How Bright is the Moon?
Variations in Albedo Affect the Moon's Brightness



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 03:39 AM
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posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 04:39 AM
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reply to post by BrokenAngelWings33
 


The moon doesn't need to be made of anything to be reflective, everything that exist that isn't black (cause it absorbs light) is reflective, that is why we have the ability to see. What we are seeing is reflected light from the sun.

The distance is not that huge, at night we can see the light from stars millions of light years away, so why does it confuse you that light from a star a mere 93 million miles away can reach us so brightly?
The sun is over 100 times the size of the earth, it doesn't matter where the moon is it will reflect the sunlight unless the earth is in the way which = a lunar eclipse.

Also you can't physically see rays of sun light. Can you see the ray of light from your flashlight? No, you only see it when dust, and air particles pass through it, you only see the light that hits an object and reflects back into your eyes.
edit on 29-11-2012 by thekoifish because: (no reason given)

edit on 29-11-2012 by thekoifish because: mistake



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 04:58 AM
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OP you make a very valid and good point.

If the moon is reflecting light to the earth it means the sun is shining on the moons surface.

If the sun shines on the earths surface it means that section of the earth is in daytime hours.

Daytime hours mean the landscape is bright and much more so without any cloud cover.

The equivalent must apply to the moon without the intervention of cloud cover.

IMHO the majority of moon landing photos look dark with little light but when the light source seems stronger the landscapes still look dark or shadowy....well unlike earth during the day with a clear sky. This could be attributed to camera settings...increased shutter speeds for instance.

Maybe another reason for this as a previous poster implied was the times chosen to land were the equivalent to our dusk and dawn to avoid extremities in temperature although according to NASA all manned landings were in Lunar daytime.

Anyone who has seen the Apollo landing press conference were the astronauts are asked did they see any stars when on the moon's surface have got to question the validity of NASA's claims!



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 04:58 AM
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reply to post by thekoifish
 


Even black materials reflect some light, otherwise we wouldn't be able to see them. Only true blackbodies absorb 100% of the light that falls on their surface. And even then, they re-emit blackbody radiation over a very specific spectrum.



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 05:14 AM
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reply to post by sharkz
 


The Earth is consistently bright on the day side because of scattering in the atmosphere. This scattering (occurring more at certain wavelengths than at others) is also responsible for the blue colour of the sky. The atmosphere doesn't block the Sun's light...it is transparent, after all.

The light on the day side of the Moon, on the other hand, is sunlight being reflected off its grey surface. There is no atmosphere to scatter the incoming light...all the interaction is happening at the surface. This is obvious in the lunar landing photos (bright ground, dark sky).



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 05:39 AM
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Originally posted by stumason
As has been said, the moon doesn't produce any light at all, so either you need to re-word your OP or get on google...

Looking at the moon from a distance, we see all the reflected light in one go from what would appear to be a small object in the sky. On the surface, taking pictures there, you're only going to get reflected light locally in a confined area.

Think of the earth, from space it too is radiant with reflected light, the seas glimmer blue, the clouds shine white etc. But down here on earth we're not blinded either, are we? And the sea is certainly not blue....

Do you honestly think that if you're on the surface of the moon you'd be bathed in some sort of bright, blinding luminescence?


No we aren't. But then we have an atmosphere that the moon does not. So light will not behave in the same way.
Yes, the light would have been blinding. The dark, the deepest pitch, in shadow.
Light in Apollo missions appear to be taken where there was an atmosphere.



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 05:47 AM
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Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by thesmokingman
Just throwing this out there to all you smart ATSers. I have always had ONE question about the moon landing and the possibility of it being a hoax.....The moon is a source of pretty bright light is it not? I mean, it produces quite a bit of light WAYYYY down here on earth. However, in EVERY single photo from the landing, there sure does not seem to be very much light.
It's interesting you should say this, because this is exactly the opposite of what other moon landing conspiracy theorists claim, which is that the photos are too bright and the moon reflects too much. Here is one photo I've seen cited showing how reflective the moon is:

pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu...


[conspiracy theorist]: This is a famous picture labeled "Man on the Moon" I have a poster of this picture hanging on my wall in my room, and it always gives me a chuckle.

If you will look at area B you will notice a shadow cast across Buzz Aldrin's space suit. Once again, if the Sun is the only light source used on the moon, this shadow would have been MUCH darker.

[reply explaining it's not a conspiracy]: The Sun is the primary light source, however, it lights up not only the lunar surface, but the LM, the astronauts spacesuit, and anything else on the lunar surface so that light scattered off of those objects will fill the dark shadows with light. Try going into a small darkened room and shine a flashlight on the wall. The side of you opposite the flashlight which only sees the lighted wall will be lit by the scattered light off the wall from the flashlight spot. The Earth also adds some fill light to the shadows, but the Sun dominates the lighting on the Moon.

This is supposedly proof of the moon landing being hoaxed because some people feel there must be another light source. But most of the light you see on the side of the astronaut in the shadow is reflected from the moon. It's possible a tiny bit of light from the Earth could add light to some pictures, but by far the biggest source is light reflected from the moon.

So which is it? Does it reflect too much as others claim, or not enough as you suggest? It looks just about right to me as seen in this photo, so I don't think this is any evidence of a hoax, but it certainly seems to be evidence refuting your claim that the light isn't brightly reflected from the moon's surface, right? There are other photos where the lunar module is brightly lit in the shadow, by the moon's reflection of sunlight.
edit on 28-11-2012 by Arbitrageur because: clarification



This photo is an obvious fake.
There is a spotlight used not the sun.
The light is too weak to light up anywhere but the immediate area around the subject, then starts tapering off
into progressively deeper shadows away from the "astronot". Not at all the way we know light reflects from the sun.

On the reflected surface of the moon it is uniformly lit. We do not see one small bright spot on the moon that progressively gets deeper in shadow away from this brightly lit spot as viewed from Earth.
Which is what this photo would look like as viewed from our vantage point.
edit on 29-11-2012 by PaperbackWriter because: elaborate



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 05:57 AM
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reply to post by PaperbackWriter
 



This photo is an obvious fake.
There is a spotlight used not the sun.
The light is too weak to light up anywhere but the immediate area around the subject, then starts tapering off
into progressively deeper shadows away from the "astronot". Not at all the way we know light reflects from the sun.


Rather than derail this thread, why not bring this photo up on this one:

www.abovetopsecret.com...



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 06:02 AM
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reply to post by DJW001
 


What? How is the light on the moon derailing the thread, or commenting on a photo already posed as a talking point?



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 06:43 AM
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Originally posted by Planet teleX
Cameras have the ability to adjust the exposure, via the shutter speed and aperture.
This is how you can cut down on light.


Not the "lunar" cameras. All settings were fixed.



posted on Nov, 29 2012 @ 06:55 AM
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Originally posted by BrokenAngelWings33
reply to post by thesmokingman
 


What is weird to me is that if the Moon is reflecting sunlight how come we don't see the source of this reflection? And just what is the Moon made out of that it reflects light in the first place? Moon dust is reflective? Why is only half the moon light and the rest is always dark? How come we only see one side? When we see the sunshine from Earth we are able to see the source, as the Sun goes down the source of light diminishes, so telling us the Sun is what lights up the moon seems rather impossible.
edit on 11/28/2012 by BrokenAngelWings33 because: grammar!


How do you see your hand in front of your face?

Because light reflects of it.




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